UX STRAT 2014: Focusing on UX Strategy

“Early-bird registration ends on July 31, 2014, so register now to save.”

The field of UX strategy has been growing rapidly over the past couple of years, as a specialty within the broader field of user experience. In the past year, postings of jobs that specify UX strategy as a key competency and specialized UX Strategist roles have become increasingly frequent. Events, workshops, and classes whose focus is the topic of UX strategy have been springing up to meet the growing need for education and professional growth in this area.

In just a few short years, the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn has grown to over 12,000 members, providing an active forum for discussions about UX strategy and, more broadly, experience strategy. UX design and management professionals around the world are participating in the dialogue. UXmatters has dedicated a significant amount of space to publishing articles about UX strategy—including my column UX Strategy, which I began in January 2012, as well as UX STRAT 2013–speaker Ronnie Battista’s new Strategy Matters column—altogether, 190 articles on UX strategy topics by many thought leaders within the realm of UX strategy.

UX STRAT 2013 was the first international conference to be dedicated specifically to the topic of UX strategy. Check out the #uxstrat Twitter stream, as well as the UX STRAT 2013 conference reviews by Margie Coles and Pabini Gabriel-Petit, which were published on UXmatters:

The UX STRAT conference will continue this year because the response to UX STRAT 2013 was enthusiastic—in terms of both the number of people who attended the conference and workshops and the social buzz that conference attendees generated during and after the event:

“Bravo & well done #uxstrat two days of thinking & inspiration! Great people & great presentations - Great conference.” @simon_norris

UX STRAT 2014 will take place on September 7–9, 2014, in Boulder, Colorado, USA—a progressive city that is nestled in a beautiful mountain setting. During a day of pre-conference workshops and the two-day conference, experienced UX strategy professionals will present their approaches to guiding UX projects, products, and programs. The historic Boulderado Hotel is to be the venue for the workshops, which will take place on September 7, while the entire UX STRAT tribe will gather at the classic Boulder Theater for conference presentations on September 8 and 9.

The theme of UX STRAT 2014 is Sharpen Your Axe. Abe Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” It’s difficult for UX leaders to get away from work to attend conferences and sharpen their skills, but we have carefully curated the workshops and presentations to give you an array of tools and case studies that will help you guide your UX projects to success.

UX leaders, strategists, researchers, and other senior UX professionals who attend the conference will have the opportunity to hear about and discuss the latest methods and trends in strategic digital experience planning and design.

Why You Should Attend UX STRAT 2014

Since conference and training budgets for UX professionals tend to be limited, UX conferences must provide a useful, targeted, career-building experience to make it worthwhile for attendees to travel across the country or around the world to attend. As organizer of the UX STRAT conference, I’m very aware that it’s essential that we differentiate our workshops and presentations from those at other, more general UX conferences. When you attend UX STRAT 2014, you’ll

find out how other companies are organizing their UX, CX, product, and service design practices

discover new ways to communicate UX and CX strategy to your organization

UX STRAT 2014 Presenters and Topics

“Our content-curation goal for UX STRAT 2014 is to cover a broad range of UX strategy case studies, giving attendees a practical toolkit of approaches that they can bring to their own professional contexts.

Our content-curation goal for UX STRAT 2014 is to cover a broad range of UX strategy case studies, giving attendees a practical toolkit of approaches that they can bring to their own professional contexts. The presenters are outstanding UX leaders who will share their experiences in UX strategy at well-known companies such as Google, Amazon, IBM, frog, Cabela’s, Nook (Barnes & Noble), Shutterfly, Citrix, and many others.

The breadth of the UX strategy case studies will provide both a foundation and a framework for the practice of UX strategy. Key topics that the conference will cover include

The Conference Program

“UX STRAT 2014 … promises to provide a very focused series of workshops and presentations on the topic of experience strategy, giving attendees a comprehensive overview of the key activities comprising the practice of experience strategy.”

We have finalized the program for UX STRAT 2014, and it promises to provide a very focused series of workshops and presentations on the topic of experience strategy, giving attendees a comprehensive overview of the key activities comprising the practice of experience strategy. Both the workshops and the conference presentations’ coverage of experience strategy case studies and methods will help UX leaders to improve their approaches to guiding experience strategy, planning, and design.

The following is a complete listing of the pre-conference workshops and conference sessions’ presenters and topics.

Pre-conference Workshops

We’ll present a wide array of hands-on UX strategy workshops on Sunday, September 7—mostly half-day workshops, but also two full-day workshops.

Full-Day Workshops

Steve Portigal, author of Interviewing Users and Founder of Portigal Consulting—“Immersive Field Techniques: Interviewing and Observing for User Research”

Pamela Pavliscak, Founder of Change Sciences—“UX Metrics 101: How to Measure and Have It Mean Something”

Sophia Voychehovski, Founder of ReWired UX Studio—“Converting to Cross-Device: A Painless Journey from Desktop-only to Responsive”

Dr. Amaya Becvar Weddle, UX Research Manager at Immersion Corporation, and Curtis Lefrandt, Vice President of Product & Training at Innovator’s DNA—“Building a Culture of Innovation: A UX Recipe for Success”

Keynotes

There will be four keynote speakers at UX STRAT 2014:

Dr. Laura Granka, Head of UX Research at Google—“Winning a Seat at the Table: What It Takes to Shape the Direction of a High-Profile Product”

Theo Forbath, Global Vice President of Innovation Strategy at frog—“The Role of UX in Defining the Future of Products, Brands, and Business Strategy”

Conclusion

“Join us for this engaging and intimate conference. It’s like UX graduate school in a conference!”

If you are working in User Experience or Customer Experience as a leader, strategist, or senior researcher or designer, the UX STRAT conference committee and I would like to invite you to join us for this engaging and intimate conference. It’s like UX graduate school in a conference!